1

      The birds flew around for nothing but the hell of it. It was that sort of day: a trailer for the coming summer. Some birds flew in neat disciplined formations, some in ragged mobs, and higher, much higher, flew the loner who didn’t like corporate decisions.

      I turned away from the window. My visitor from the Embassy was still complaining.

      ‘Paris lives in the past,’ said the courier scornfully. ‘Manet is at the opera and Degas at the ballet. Escoffier cooks while Eiffel builds, lyrics by Dumas, music by Offenbach. Oo-là-là our Paree is gay, monsieur, and our private rooms discreet, our coaches call at three, monsieur, and Schlieffen has no plans.’

      ‘They’re not all like that,’ I said. Some birds hovered near the window deciding whether to eat the seed I’d scattered on the window-sill.

      ‘All the ones I meet are,’ said the courier. He too stopped looking across the humpty-backed rooftops, and as he turned away from the window he noticed a patch of white plaster on his sleeve. He brushed it petulantly as though Paris was trying to get at him. He pulled at his waistcoat – a natty affair with wide lapels – and then picked at the seat of the chair before sitting down. Now that he’d moved away from the window the birds returned, and began fighting over the seed that I had put there.

      I pushed the coffee pot to him. ‘Real coffee,’ he said. ‘The French seem to drink only instant coffee nowadays.’ Thus reassured of my decorum he unlocked the briefcase that rested upon his knees. It was a large black case and contained reams of reports. One of them he passed across to me.

      ‘Read it while I’m here. I can’t leave it.’

      ‘It’s secret?’

      ‘No, our document copier has gone wrong and it’s the only one I have.’

      I read it. It was a ‘stage report’ of no importance. I passed it back. ‘It’s a lot of rubbish,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry you have to come all the way over here with this sort of junk.’

      He shrugged. ‘It gets me out of the office. Anyway it wouldn’t do to have people like you in and out of the Embassy all the time.’ He was new, this courier. They all started like him. Tough, beady-eyed young men anxious to prove how efficient they can be. Anxious too to demonstrate that Paris could have no attraction for them. A near-by clock chimed two P.M. and that disturbed the birds.

      ‘Romantic,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s romantic about Paris except couples kissing on the street because the city’s so overcrowded that they have nowhere else to go.’ He finished his coffee. ‘It’s terribly good coffee,’ he said. ‘Dining out tonight?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said.

      ‘With your artist friend Byrd?’

      I gave him the sort of glance that Englishmen reserve for other Englishmen. He twitched with embarrassment. ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘don’t think for a moment … I mean … we don’t have you … that is …’

      ‘Don’t start handing out indemnities,’ I said. ‘Of course I am under surveillance.’

      ‘I remembered your saying that you always had dinner with Byrd the artist on Mondays. I noticed the Skira art book set aside on the table. I guessed you were returning it to him.’

      ‘All good stuff,’ I said. ‘You should be doing my job.’

      He smiled and shook his head. ‘How I’d hate that,’ he said. ‘Dealing with the French all day; it’s bad enough having to mix with them in the evening.’

      ‘The French are all right,’ I said.

      ‘Did you keep the envelopes? I’ve brought the iodine in pot iodide.’ I gave him all the envelopes that had come through the post during the previous week and he took his little bottle and painted the flaps carefully.

      ‘Resealed with starch paste. Every damn letter. Someone here, must be. The landlady. Every damned letter. That’s too thorough to be just nosiness. Prenez garde.’ He put the envelopes, which had brown stains from the chemical reaction, into his case. ‘Don’t want to leave them around.’

      ‘No,’ I said. I yawned.

      ‘I don’t know what you do all day,’ he said. ‘Whatever do you find to do?’

      ‘I do nothing all day except make coffee for people who wonder what I do all day.’

      ‘Yes, well thanks for lunch. The old bitch does a good lunch even if she does steam your mail open.’ He poured both of us more coffee. ‘There’s a new job for you.’ He added the right amount of sugar, handed it to me and looked up. ‘A man named Datt who comes here to Le Petit Légionnaire. The one that was sitting opposite us at lunch today.’ There was a silence. I said:

      ‘What do you want to know about him?’

      ‘Nothing,’ said the courier. ‘We don’t want to know anything about him, we want to give him a caseful of data.’

      ‘Write his address on it and take it to the post office.’

      He gave a pained little grimace. ‘It’s got to sound right when he gets it.’

      ‘What is it?’

      ‘It’s a history of nuclear fall-out, starting from New Mexico right up to the last test. There are reports from the Hiroshima hospital for bomb victims and various stuff about its effect upon cells and plant-life. It’s too complex for me but you can read it through if your mind works that way.’

      ‘What’s the catch?’

      ‘No catch.’

      ‘What I need to know is how difficult it is to detect the phoney parts. One minute in the hands of an expert? Three months in the hands of a committee? I need to know how long the fuse is, if I’m the one that’s planting the bomb.’

      ‘There is no cause to believe it’s anything other than genuine.’ He pressed the lock on the case as though to test his claim.

      ‘Well that’s nice,’ I said. ‘Who does Datt send it to?’

      ‘Not my part of the script, old boy. I’m just the errand boy, you know. I give the case to you, you give it to Datt, making sure he doesn’t know where it came from. Pretend you are working for CIA if you like. You are a clean new boy, it should be straightforward.’

      He drummed his fingers to indicate that he must leave.

      ‘What am I expected to do with your bundle of papers – leave it on his plate one lunchtime?’

      ‘Don’t fret, that’s being taken care of. Datt will know that you have the documents, he’ll contact you and ask for them. Your job is just to let him have them … reluctantly.’